


Sunlight Years

by AngelOfBooze



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: (this is mainly a sherlock character study and so the other characters don't appear very much), Autistic Sherlock, Canon Autistic Character, Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Sign Language, Stimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 19:16:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6484213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelOfBooze/pseuds/AngelOfBooze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes Through Out The Years</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunlight Years

He is five and is rolling the clear cats eye marble along the ground, his ear is pressed firmly against the polished wood of though lounge room floor. He can feel the echo of the marble resonating through the wood and up into his head. The feeling is intoxicating and it is pulling him down, down, down until all he can think is the sound and texture of the smooth floor underneath the cool glass of the marble. His mother is smiling and looking down at her son from on a chaise lounge, a small pile of marbles rest at her feet, where Sherlock deposits and withdraws a new marble periodically, not wanting them to feel left out. “They all get a turn” He says, articulate for his age. Mycroft is sitting to his mothers right reading a book and tapping his fingers along the spine “Marbles don’t have feelings, Sherlock” he replies distractedly, his thirteen year old mind elsewhere. Sherlock ignores his brother and continues the rotation, his eyes widening as he moves one through the shaft of sunlight that streams into the lounge room from the tall, thin windows. He lifts his head away from the floor for the first time in just under an hour and looks up at the dust motes floating through the space. His eyes become preoccupied with the sight, his hands with rolling the marble between them.

He is ten and is hiding underneath his ink stained desk, his hands fixed tightly against his ears, trying to squeeze out the sound of the other boys laughter. He doesn’t know why, but the chatter in the room, the sunlight glaring angrily through the uniform windows of the classroom had made him retreat to the too small hiding space of his desk. He doesn’t know why the once friendly dust moats became so vicious, their twinkling forms like millions of tiny needles in his eyes. His head is pressing against the bottom the desk, he knows that it’s littered with the remains of gum long since chewed and yet he can’t bring himself to care. He can feel hot tears roll down his face, his skin even hotter with shame and embarrassment. He finds his hands have moved around to the front of his head, scrabbling against his hairline, he can feel his skin getting scraped away in his desperation to regain control. The teacher is peering down at him, curious and concerned. Sherlock avoids the mans eyes, they hurt to look at, too much emotion would be reflected in them. Sherlocks neck is bent at an unnatural and painful angle, anything to avoid the looks being thrown his way by his peers.

He is fifteen, Mycroft graduated four years ago, his protective presence long since faded and replaced with bruises left by fists of some of the bigger boys who hurl slurs at him relentlessly. His hands are moving in patterns unintelligible to the children around him, but they are making perfect sense to Sherlock. He has long since forgotten the soothing feeling of contorting his fingers and flapping his hands at the wrists, replaced those unacceptable movements with structured ones. He has learned a new language, one that helps keep his brain quiet. It didn’t take him long to master the shapes his hands need to take on and it’s taken an even shorter time to employ his communication to his interactions with his peers. They don’t understand him, they understand him less than when he would burst into tears at the slightest of unexpected touches, but he understands himself better and that’s all that matters.

He is twenty and he no longer talks to his father or his brother, unable to relate to their behaviour and unwilling to learn for them. He no longer moves with people who expect him to be a proper young man, he left that world when he lashed out at 18 and was expelled for breaking a boys nose. He was never able to tell the principal and the other higher ups the reason he punched the other boy. The reason was that Sherlock saw him harassing a boy scarcely older than ten for the same reasons Sherlock had been harassed when he was that age. He takes up classes at university, never able to settle on a major and never able to sleep because of his dorm mates.

He is twenty five and has learned six more languages, all spoken with silent words and all easier than his native tongue. He spends days at a time speaking silently, the ghost of English balanced on his tongue but never slipping out past lips pressed together so firmly that it’s painful and that passers by look at him, caution painted across their faces and flowing through their body language. He has found that THC makes his thoughts and the world around him quieter in a way that his hands and a builders earmuffs never could. His hands barely move except to speak, he catches himself tapping his fingers against his thighs and lays them flat once again. He spends days admiring the way the dust in his flat moves around in the shaft of light that breaks through the crack in his curtains. He is no longer in school, he forgets to eat, no one there to drag him into the cafeteria.

He is thirty and he has discovered that opiates can quiet the world even more than he ever thought possible. He is working with Scotland yard, making sure he no longer has any heroin in his system before going into work, making sure his body is as still as a statue. He still forgets to eat but Lestrade manages to catch on to that fact quickly and texts him sporadically to remind him that the case is _important_ and that Sherlock needs to be as alert as possible if they’re going to solve it. Sherlock knows that even on an empty stomach and high on heroin he could solve a case better and quicker than Lestrade. He tells the detective as such in one of the silent languages. Lestrade laughs and doesn't understand what Sherlock has said. He tells Sherlock to stop drawing attention to them, that his hands are too loud and his face is too wooden to ever speak the language fluently.

He is thirty four and is rolling a pen along the wooden floors of Irene’s house, the sound drawing up a whisper of a childhood long since passed. He is staring at what’s left of the love of his life, what used to be a stagnant puddle of foul smelling blood now only a brown stain tarnishing the smooth wooden floor, a parallel to the ever moving Irene, who smelled like the rain and flowers, who was as light as the sunlight. Who’s soft voice and quick and deft hands could sooth the noise in Sherlock’s head enough that he could sleep as peacefully sober as he did high. He knows he shouldn’t be spending time in her flat, he knows it doesn’t help him grieve. He goes home and finds his stash. He doesn’t have a sober moment for the next year. His hands still shake when he thinks of her.

He is thirty five and is living in the Brownstone along with a woman who will never understand him and the threat of eviction hanging in the space just above his conscious thoughts. He is working with people he doesn’t know and he is trying desperately to escape the noise that engulfs his mind without turning back to drugs. His fingers twitch, even in his colleagues presence, he’s a (recovering) addict, his fingers are allowed to twitch, he is allowed to bounce gently on his toes when he is focusing on a case, there’s nothing wrong with it. He knows that (recovering)addicts perform those types of behaviours. He also knows that he doesn’t need the former surgeon turned addict sitter to be with him as constantly as she is.

He is forty and he may have relapsed but he has a support system unlike the one he had five years ago. His hands still shake but this time it’s intentional. His hands shake with the same joy they did thirty five years ago, when he solves a case, when he looks at Joan or Fiona, when he tends to his bees, when he speaks one of the dozen languages he knows. Sometimes they shake so much he has trouble speaking the silent languages. He still can’t touch people comfortably, but those who love him most don’t mind. Fiona throws a weighted blanket over his legs when they’re sitting down and watching television, Joan sits on the floor and rests her head against Fionas leg, smiling as it bounces softly against her hair. He sometimes rolls marbles along the floor boards and he sometimes retreats to the darkness of his bedroom instead of hiding beneath tables. His face still contorts into parody-like frowns and grimaces but neither of his companions mention it. His eyes are still drawn to the dust motes floating and dancing through the air in broken shards of sunlight and Fiona sometimes sits and watches them with him too, and when he comes out of his trance there’s always a cooling cup of tea sitting just within reach.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank-you so much for reading!  
> It's been ages since I've written anything, but I had a sudden inspiration to write about stimming, and what better character to write about than Elementary's Sherlock?  
> Please leave comments and kudos if you enjoyed this~


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